HP 14s Laptop UK Review (2026). Tested for Several Weeks

You know how laptop manufacturers love to throw around battery life numbers that sound brilliant? ‘Up to 11 hours!’ they’ll shout. Then you get the thing home, open Chrome with a dozen tabs, and suddenly you’re hunting for a charger after four hours. I’ve been testing the HP 14s for several weeks now, using it exactly how you would – coffee shops, trains, working from the kitchen table – and I’m here to tell you what the battery life actually looks like. Spoiler: it’s not what HP claims, but it might still work for you.

The HP 14s sits in that tricky mid-range category where you’re not getting budget compromises, but you’re also not paying for premium frills you might not need. It’s aimed squarely at people who need a proper workhorse laptop without spending over a grand. Students, remote workers, small business owners – that’s the target here.

You get 16GB of DDR4 RAM (not upgradeable, which is annoying) and a 512GB NVMe SSD. Storage is fine for most users, though content creators might find themselves running out of space. The integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics handle basic photo editing and older games at low settings, but don’t expect miracles.

Brightness peaks at around 250 nits, which is adequate indoors but struggles in direct sunlight. I tested this at a café with big windows on a sunny January afternoon (rare, I know), and I had to angle the screen away from the light to see anything properly. Colour accuracy is decent enough for watching Netflix or basic photo editing, but if you’re doing serious colour work, you’ll want an external monitor.

The 12th Gen i7-1255U is a hybrid chip with 2 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. In practice, this means it handles multitasking really well. I regularly had 20+ Chrome tabs open, Spotify streaming, a Word document, and Excel spreadsheet running simultaneously without any noticeable slowdown. The efficiency cores handle background tasks whilst the performance cores kick in when you need them.

Video calls on Teams and Zoom are smooth. I did a two-hour Teams call with screen sharing and video on, and the laptop didn’t break a sweat. Fan noise was minimal (more on that later). Photo editing in Lightroom with RAW files from a 24MP camera was manageable – applying adjustments was responsive, though exporting a batch of 50 photos took about 4 minutes.

Gaming? Well, this isn’t a gaming laptop, but the Iris Xe graphics can handle some lighter titles. I tested CS:GO at 1080p on low settings and got around 45-60fps, which is playable. Older games like Stardew Valley or Hollow Knight run perfectly. But forget about anything demanding like Cyberpunk 2077 or even Fortnite at decent settings.

Here’s what I actually got in real-world use:

One annoying thing: there’s no USB-C charging. You’re stuck with HP’s proprietary barrel plug charger. In 2026, when most decent laptops support USB-C Power Delivery, this feels dated. You can’t just borrow someone’s phone charger in a pinch or use a universal USB-C adapter when travelling.

The hinge is firm – you’ll need two hands to open the lid – but it holds the screen steady at any angle. No wobbling when you’re typing on a train. The overall aesthetic is understated silver-grey, which is fine. It’s not going to turn heads, but it looks professional enough for client meetings.

This is where the HP 14s really shines. At 1.46kg and under 18mm thin, it’s properly portable. I carried it in a standard backpack alongside textbooks and barely noticed the weight. The charger is compact too, so you’re not lugging around a massive power brick. Perfect for students moving between lectures.

The port selection is functional but dated. HDMI 1.4 means you’re limited to 4K@30Hz for external displays. No Thunderbolt means no high-speed external storage or eGPU options. And again, that lack of USB-C charging is frustrating. WiFi 6 is good though, and I had no connectivity issues on busy coffee shop networks.

Even under sustained load, the keyboard area stayed comfortable. The hottest spot is towards the top centre of the keyboard, but it never got uncomfortable to touch. I used this on my lap whilst working from the sofa, and it was fine – warm but not unpleasant. No thermal throttling detected during my Cinebench runs either.

This is genuinely one of the quieter laptops I’ve tested at this price. During normal work – documents, web browsing, even video calls – the fans are either off or barely audible. Even under full load during benchmarks, the fan noise is a steady whoosh without any annoying high-pitched components. Perfectly acceptable for library or office use.

The dual microphones are adequate. People on video calls said I came through clearly, though the mics do pick up keyboard typing if you’re taking notes during meetings. The speakers are typical budget laptop fare – tinny, lacking bass, but loud enough. They’re fine for YouTube videos or Netflix in a quiet room, but you’ll want headphones for music or proper film watching.

The HP 14s offers better CPU performance than the Dell thanks to the i7 chip, and it comes with more RAM out of the box. But the Dell has better battery life and supports USB-C charging. The Lenovo IdeaPad 5 is the battery life champion and slightly lighter, but costs a bit more and uses an older Ryzen chip that’s slower in single-threaded tasks.